Handling Those Temple Ordinance Cards

• by Ralph and Linda Miller, Area FH Advisers northern part of New England

The pink, blue and gold temple ordinance cards represent people who are ready to receive the ordinances of the temple.  While the cards themselves aren’t sacred, the ordinances they represent for our deceased relatives make them very important.  We receive the cards when we bring a Family Ordinance Request (FOR) to the temple.  But what should we do with the cards once we receive them?

Here are some suggestions we have found helpful.  Please note – these are not official policy instructions, but we hope you might find them useful, as we have.

• Sort cards by the next ordinance to be performed. Ordinances must be received in the order shown on the card.  For most individual cards, baptism is the first ordinance to be completed, so put all the cards needing baptism and confirmation first.  There may be some that already have baptism performed, so those would go into a pile for initiatory.  Another pile will be for female endowments.  Use a paper clip or rubber band to put all the female baptism ordinances together; make another stack for the female initiatory, etc.
• Put sealings together. When you sort ordinance cards, you may have some cards that only require sealing to parents.  Put these with your gold couple sealing cards.  The easiest way to organize them is to put the couple sealings on top, with the pink daughter sealings next, and the blue son sealings next.  The entire stack should be brought with you when you perform the sealings.  Remember, you cannot do sealings for children who require other ordinances (baptism, etc.) until those other ordinances are completed.
• Alphabetize each stack of cards. While not required, we like to sort the cards alphabetically.  This makes it easy to put families together.  It also makes it easy to tell where you are in the stack, and to quickly find an individual’s card.
• Put your cards in your temple case. Once you have sorted your cards by gender, ordinance and alphabet, be sure to bring them with you when you go to the temple. Too many times, people go to the temple and realize they left the cards in a file folder at home on the table.  Keep your cards handy so you can perform ordinances whenever you go to the temple.  You may wish to have your spouse keep a small supply of cards in his/her temple case as well, in case one of you attends the temple without the other.  You don’t want to get there and not have any of your cards!
• Keep track of your cards. If you give cards to someone else to perform one or more ordinances, record this.  If you give cards out to people to work on, get them back right away.  If someone has had a card for a long time and not completed it, ask for the card back.  You don’t want to have lost cards or duplicate cards.  If you determine a card has been lost (or gone through the laundry), it can be reprinted.  However, then it is important to destroy the previous card so there aren’t duplicates for the same person.  Reprinted cards will say “reprinted” on the top.

We hope this information is helpful to you.  Remember, these are not hard and fast rules, but simply suggestions we have found useful over the years.  Next issue:  what to do with cards once all the ordinances are completed.

 

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